Disappointing. A recruiter reached out about 2 months after I applied and told me that she was taking over for another recruiter. All I could think about what happened in those 2 months that they didn't think to reach out sooner?
I've interviewed with Airbnb over the last couple over years with the likelihood that I hear from them decreasing with each year of additional experience. I have extensive travel, analytics, and international experience that is not a plus for a company that has increasingly gone out of its way to avoid hiring anyone from the travel industry - check the profiles of those at Airbnb, close to 0 previous travel experience. Booking.com is the opposite.
My first interview was with the hiring manager. At least they did go with having that be the first interview to be clear on what the job entails. He asked if I had used the platform and to be honest. I said yes and that I am a host, both true. It's shameful because in the past I've gotten dings on my interviews for allegedly showing lack of confidence, but there I was having to convince someone that I actually use their product.
I moved to the SQL interview and had additional time allotted. That interviewer seemed surprised by what I looked like, expecting someone lighter I presume. She did give me some space to think, but as I was working through a problem she interjected a basic validation suggestion to count the distinct rows to validate - obviously. That was the only "error", which was not an error as I was still working through the problem. Allotted extra time also means shush so I can think. Their inclusion policies are questionable. It was also absurd that they had me to the technical interview 1:1 with someone junior to the role I was interviewing for as if she wouldn't have wanted the more senior role, obvious by her behavior.
I answered everything right and there was no follow up about passing along my information to other teams as has happened with actual top tier companies. I've experimented with my demographics when applying and based on that analysis the overwhelming issue is the travel experience is viewed as a negative. Smh.
Airbnb is the only large, global travel tech company that offers remote work. They must be real dense to think that people in other travel companies wouldn't want to stay in travel and work remote. Or maybe Airbnb is insecure about their growth trajectory.